I've been pondering the reactions of friends and my own reaction to the quotes I posted in my last blog entry. Seeing them all listed together was rather overwhelming.

Here's my main thought... insofar as they separated kids from their families to try to make
them less Indian, the residential schools represented an unjust system, a program of cultural genocide. But over and above this cultural genocide, there was also an extremely disturbing amount of child abuse at the schools. And why was that? That's the question one of my best friends asked me - why was there so much abuse, particularly sexual abuse? It wasn't a few isolated cases, and it wasn't only the celibate Catholic priests - it happened in multiple schools run by different denominations. The abuse was systemic; it was endemic to the school system. I think the prevalence of abuse had something to do with the fact that these children were generally seen as uncivilized savages. They were lesser humans, in a separate category from white children. It was this faulty belief that somehow legitimized the abuse for the many of the teachers, and by perpetually abusing the kids, they sustained and reinforced their belief that the kids were worth very little. It was a twisted, self-reinforcing system, an "institutionalized pedophilia," as one of the judges in the settlement put it.

As a Christian white person listening to all these survivor stories, I had the overwhelming urge to do something or say something to express my horror and remorse. I was tentatively hoping that this kind of thing might happen during the "Expressions of Reconciliation." This was the time in the weekend when representatives of churches and other organizations gave speeches in front of the whole gathering. Some were apologizing, and some were not. (One thing I learned that weekend is that the word "apologize" is a legal term, and carries the responsibility to make reparations, as opposed to a word like "regret.") Yes, words alone can be cheap, but words can also be very powerful and healing, so I knew it would be important for these representatives to choose their words carefully.

Honestly, I will humbly admit that I have no idea how to properly apologize (or even "express regret") for something as vast and complex and systemic as the residential schools. I realize that it makes things much harder when you're apologizing on behalf of a group, and you do not have free rein over what you say. But I've got to admit that I learned more during these speeches about what I would not say than I did about what I would say, if given the chance. So without further ado, I will categorize these observations for you in a little section I'd like to call...

How NOT to Apologize

- Come with self-serving goals (other than reconciliation). By far one of the strangest "expressions of reconciliation" was from BC Hydro (our province's electricity provider). BC Hydro did not participate in any way in the Indian Residential Schools. With nothing to apologize for, the guy in the suit ended up bragging about how BC Hydro brought twenty of their top employees to this Victoria event to volunteer, and how they want to understand what happened so they can better do business with First Nations people. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for listening and learning, but the whole thing came off not as an expression of reconciliation, but as a promotional spot, a weird advertisement for BC Hydro. My friend Laurel leaned over to me and said, "I wonder if most people hear the church apologies with the same cynicism we hear this one with, asking 'what's in it for them?'"

- Encourage the people you hurt to "focus on remembering the good times." Yes, someone did say this, and yes, I almost left the room. This particular priest's version of an "expression of reconciliation" was to spend most of his time talking about the residential school he worked at, and how it was a wonderful, loving home for the majority of the students. His words were met by shouts of protest from the survivors in the crowd. One woman sobbed loudly and uncontrollably through his speech. I don't doubt that there were good experiences at residential schools. But reconciliation depends on the church's and government's ability to humbly acknowledge and take responsibility for the horrible experiences, even if they feel they were the exception to the rule. It is definitely not the offender's role to determine on what experiences the victims should focus.

- Don't show any emotion. After all the tears that flowed during the survivor statements, the lack of emotion during the apologies was particularly evident. The apologizers often used emotion-laden language, but there was not a single tear, not a single embodied expression of remorse. One denominational representative said "I hang my head in shame," but he was not, in fact, hanging his head! Not that I would have wanted these speakers to force emotions that weren't there... but why weren't the emotions there? Were the speakers having trouble identifying with the actual perpetrators? Were they too distant from what had happened? Or do we North Americans just suck at embodying remorse? We don't have a lot of culturally appropriate expressions of sorrow - we don't rip our clothing or sit in ashes, like the Jews did. All I know is that as I sat listening to these "apologies," my heart started beating quickly and I felt like I had to do something drastic with my whole body, with my entire being, to show the depth of what I felt. I wanted to lay face down on the ground in the aisle. But I didn't even know what that would communicate.

- Draw connections between their pain and your own. One religious leader began his speech by saying that during his time listening to the survivors' stories, he was struck especially by the parts about losing and being separated from family members, because his own mother had just passed away. I know that he was trying to personalize his apology and was seeking some common ground with the survivors, but because he didn't adequately qualify what he said, he seemed to equate the very disparate experiences of being stolen as a young child from your parents' home, and having your mother die of old age. It's always dangerous to say (or imply) "I know how you felt."

- Congratulate yourself for how far you've come. This was one of the more subtle things that happened. A couple "expressions of reconciliation" were dominated by "expressions of how good we've already been doing at reconciling." One church showed a news report about a reconciliation event they attempted with local First Nations bands. Another denominational rep talked about the Aboriginal programs and bursaries they'd been offering at their seminary, and gave two gifts to the Commission - a mug and a brochure from the seminary. It was good to hear these hopeful stories of progress, just like it was good to hear stories of healing from survivors. But like the survivors, the churches have to spend the majority of their airtime at these events courageously telling the truth about what happened, rather than rushing into the healing part. And come on... a mug and a brochure? Really?

- Shift the focus to another offending party. One church representative said he wanted to finish his speech with an important question. We were all on the edges of our seats, wondering what question he would leave us with - would it be "What can we do now to encourage reconciliation?" or perhaps "Do you accept our apology?" No. His closing question was... "Where is the government?" He was pointing out the fact that all the church representatives had given speeches, but no one from the government had come to the Victoria event to say anything. Valid point, but this constant blame-shifting has already driven residential school survivors crazy. The church and government sound like children trying to convince their mother that not they, but their sibling, who is the real culprit. It's time to grow up and own what's ours.

- Act like all the bad stuff is over now. This was the most consistent problem with the speeches. Every speaker talked about looking forward to walking together with First Nations people into a bright future. But no one acknowledged that systemic injustice against First Nations people continues to this day in Canada, and that all of us, especially we Church people, have a responsibility to stand up and do something about it.

I'll talk more about this last concept in my next post... but I have to think about it some more first!

At the Truth and Reconciliation event, survivors were invited to share their lived experiences at residential school in one of three ways. They could do so in a private, one-on-one session with a trained statement-taker. Or, they could give a public statement, either in a sharing circle or a sharing panel. The sharing circle was a bit more intimate and flexible, allowing survivors to sit facing one another and to interact, while the panel was more formal and drew larger crowds. In total, 158 statements were taken in Victoria.

I'd like to share some quotes from the many statements I was privileged to hear last weekend, since (as I wrote about last time) I feel a responsibility to bear witness. The limitation in doing this in written form is that you don't get to hear the emotion behind the statements. The commissioners stressed that the conference was a "tear-friendly" zone, and that's a good thing, because everyone cried - those giving the statements, and those listening - everyone except the man who confessed he could no longer cry, which you'll read about below. During every session, health support workers walked around, handing out kleenexes and collecting them in bags. After the sessions, as you left the room, you were invited to wash your face in a tear-collecting canoe-shaped basin. The pain the survivors carried and brought to the surface during these sharing circles and panels was palpable and immense.

Just as a warning, some of the quotes I will share below describe abuse and may be disturbing. Also note that I have tried to quote the survivors as accurately as possible, using their wording and phrasing, but these are not exact quotes.

"At residential school, I kept asking, 'Why would my mother abandon me? Why would she give me up?' I got all this money from the legal settlement, but I'd rather have my
mother back. I'm 52 years old, and I'm still a lost little boy."

"When I started day school at age 5, all I could speak was Kwak'wala. My teacher beat the language out of me. When I was caught speaking Kwak'wala to my cousin, she made me bend over a desk in front of all the students, she pulled up my dress, and she spanked my bare bottom with a leather strap. From then on I never wore dresses; I only ever wore pants to school. If I was caught again, I was forced to write 'I must only speak English' on the chalkboard one hundred times, and the number doubled each time I was caught... To this day I can't speak Kwak'wala. Sure, I can understand it, but when I try to speak it, it won't come."

"We were always thirsty at St. Michael's. I remember drinking water from the back tank of the toilet... I tried to run away once, with my friend. We were found, brought back, and beaten... I used to go down to the fence at the waterfront and look through. I was waiting for my father to paddle up to the shore, to take me home. He never came."

"I feel unworthy, being a survivor, knowing that most of my friends died, either at the school, or shortly after, because of addictions. I was molested and raped, like the other boys at the school. It took 15-20 years of work with a therapist to pry this out of me. In the meantime, I was callous. I beat my wife like all the other drunk Indians."

"I was attending public school in my community when I was taken, in the middle of class, and brought to residential school. They targeted me because my father was a chief. My mom didn't know what had happened. She searched for me for three days. My residential school was on Kuper Island. We called it Alcatraz, because us kids couldn't hope to escape from an island... I was sexually abused at that school from when I was ten years to twelve years young. I have post-traumatic stress disorder, and I never know when I'll be triggered. I'll walk with these scars forever."

"The day I was taken to residential school, I clung to my mother like glutchum - like a mussel on a rock. It's the last time I saw her. She died while I was there. We weren't allowed to go to her funeral. We weren't even allowed to cry. The loneliness has never ever left me."

"It wasn't an education. The only thing we learned was how to survive... Since Kuper Island Residential School, I can't cry. I tried to cry when my daughter died, but all that came out was this unearthly sound. Even now, even today, I can't cry. For years, because of the abuse, I couldn't stand being touched, even by my granddaughters... but now, thanks to God, I can hug them... There were many ways I tried to deal with the pain. By grade 9, I was into alcohol. Now both my remaining sons are alcoholics. I pray for them."

"There was a fence separating the girls from the boys. One day I got caught trying to talk to my brother through the fence. The teachers tied me up, hog-tied me, hands and feet, in a corner. They accused me of flirting. I kept repeating, 'That's my brother.' That's when I learned to disappear into the woodwork, to hide, to blend in, just to survive."

"During my whole adult life, I knew something was wrong. I'd fly off the handle. Get drunk. It wasn't until three years ago that I figured it out, when I was on the internet, and I saw the picture of a priest who worked at my residential school. It all came rushing back to me, everything I'd pushed down... how two priests raped me on the table, in the kitchen, on a regular basis. They took away my soul... The evil lives inside all of us who were there, not in our hearts, but deep in our bellies. We get heavy."

"The teachers told me I was nothing but a worthless, useless, stinking Indian - they said that's why my parents dumped me there... Our protectors turned out to be our tormentors... A lot of things happened in those school bathrooms... I had to pretend like I was the only one it was happening to, even though I saw it in the eyes of the other kids, too. I would be drugged with wine after dinner, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night in bed, without my underwear or pajama bottoms."

"The nuns and priests degraded us, made us feel like we were nothing... They didn't nourish us with love, affection or praise. So I never learned how to do that for my kids. I never expressed love or praise to them. Now that I'm older, I know better. Now I never leave home without telling them 'I love you.'"

-------------

Some people who gave statements were not themselves former students of residential schools, but were children or grandchildren of residential school students. They were called "intergenerational survivors," and they shared how their parents' and grandparents' experiences had affected their families. Here are a couple of examples:

"My parents attended residential school. They bottled up all their pain. It tore apart our family - they drank, and couldn't take care of us. My siblings were apprehended and put in foster care. Since our parents drank, we thought it was ok... I have so much remorse when it comes to my own children and how I treated them. My granddaughter says she'll never drink. I want to believe her. I want to stop the cycle."

"My
mother was taken to residential school at age 3. She never told us any bad
things about it - she said it worked for her. But when I was young,
she would regularly wait for me after school with a stick of some
sort... when I'd re-gain consciousness, I'd be on my bed without my
clothes on, covered in bruises."

--------------

I won't say much today about these quotes, because they are a lot to digest, and I will comment further in my final post. I will say that the way I saw these individuals changed so profoundly after I heard them share their experiences. Their very acts of sharing were so courageous and vulnerable, not to mention the things they endured and the resilience they showed and the healing they continued to seek... every subsequent time I saw them at the conference, it was like seeing a hero. It's amazing what changes when you learn someone's deepest suffering.

In a few days, I'll write about the apologies and expressions of reconciliation I witnessed.

In many First Nations along the West Coast, especially those with
ceremonies in longhouses, there is a tradition of choosing witnesses.
These people are given a small amount of money, and are formally charged
with carefully observing what happens at that ceremony, so that they
can tell future generations, and others who are not present.

In his speech at the Opening Ceremonies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission event in Victoria (which I attended this past weekend), Justice Murray Sinclair, one of the three commissioners, told us that if we had chosen to come to the event, no matter who we were, we had become witnesses. We were "commissioned" to share what we learned at the event, to inform our communities and networks.

Justice Sinclair said that part of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will do is make it impossible for future generations to deny that the residential schools existed, or to deny what happened in these schools. Students' experiences are recorded on official record, preserving a national memory that cannot be erased. I had never considered how easy and convenient it would be for Canadians to minimize or gloss over these painful and shameful experiences.

I pondered the fact that I had not even heard of Canada's residential schools until my Native Studies class in first year university (!). I still remember sitting on my bed, having just read a first-hand account from a former residential school student. I wept in disbelief and anger, especially over my discovery that the Church had been so intricately involved in the abuse and cultural genocide. This truth must be witnessed to, and must be spread broadly, not just to the few people who happen take Native Studies. If we do not witness to the injustice, we risk repeating the injustice, for although we'd all like to think we've come a long way, the colonial attitudes that implemented residential schools are still buried in our minds like seeds.

The responsibility to witness is especially relevant for people who follow Christ. Last summer, at the first annual Creative World Festival, which takes place on the grounds of St. Mary's Residential School, Ched Myers said this: "For Christians, the luxury of historical amnesia is unequivocally prohibited. Jesus said, 'Do this in remembrance of me.' He told us to ingest memory." Ched challenged us to actively remember the people whose lives had been profoundly dis-membered on those very school grounds.

So I am attempting in these blog posts to fulfill my duties as a witness - to tell you what I saw and heard and felt in Victoria. In my next post, I'll begin my witnessing.

Monday, April 16, 2012

The phrase "Truth and Reconciliation" often brings to mind race-based conflicts in places like South Africa, Rwanda, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Due to the absence of a high-profile genocide or civil war, many Canadians are surprised to discover that Canada is also currently in the middle of a nation-wide Truth and Reconciliation process.

Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission addresses the 130 Indian Residential Schools that operated in this country from the 1840s until the last one closed in 1996 (!). About 150 000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children attended these government-funded, church-run schools, which intended to "kill the Indian in the child." About half of these former students are still alive today. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls them "survivors," and often refers to their children and grandchildren as "intergenerational survivors," since they, too, experienced the negative impacts of the schools, especially in the difficult family dynamics that ensued.

Over the last couple of decades, several residential school survivors have filed claims against the government for the abuse they suffered at these schools. In 2007, a settlement was reached, which allocated funds to survivors and to healing centers, and mandated the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This was followed soon after by the (in)famous apology by Stephen Harper to survivors and their families.

The purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to do research, collect statements from survivors, and make a permanent archive establishing the truth of what happened while the schools were in operation. They also seek to educate Canadians about the schools, their legacy and impacts, and to encourage and suggest steps toward reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada.

This Truth and Reconciliation process is unique in a lot of ways. It is the first court-ordered commission. It is the first one to study such a long period in history (150 years). It is one of the first Truth & Reconciliation commissions in a First World country. Of particular interest to me, it is the first commission examining a situation where the oppressed parties were primarily children, and where one of the main oppressors was the Church.

-------

I have never written a series of blogs before, but I feel like my experience at this Truth and Reconciliation event in Victoria merits more than one blog entry. I hope to publish four blogs to summarize my experience and my reflections:

- Being a Witness
- Listening to Survivors
- How (not) to Apologize
- Forgiveness and Reconciliation

I look forward to sharing more with you over the next couple weeks. But I also recognize that there's no substitute for attending these events yourselves.

So please get out your calendars.

If you are a friend of mine living in Saskatoon, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be hosting a National Event there in just a couple months, June 21-24, which they hope will attract over 20 000 survivors, and even more guests. It's free to attend. Check the website for more details as plans come together. Don't miss this chance!

If you are a friend of mine living in Vancouver, you have to wait a little longer... the Commission won't be here for another year and a half. It will come to Vancouver September 18-21, 2013. But it will be big... rumours from the planning committee include a 50,000-person march to kick it all off. Expect to participate!

Friday, April 06, 2012

This afternoon, on Good Friday, we walked around the neighbourhood for the fourth time in our little church's life together. Our first ever service, three years ago, was a Good Friday service. So happy third birthday, God's House of Many Faces!

As we walked, we stopped at various places to remember parts of the crucifixion story. At each site, we each planted a wildflower seed and sang, "Unless the seed falls to the ground, ain't gonna be no life at all."

We also read excerpts of poetry by Bud Osborn at each stop. Bud Osborn is one of the coolest people I know. Actually I don't really know him at all, but I know his work, and every time I see him in the neighbourhood, I feel like I want to ask for his autograph. He's a DTES resident, prolific poet, activist (especially against homelessness and against the war on drugs), a very humble and courageous soul. The story goes that he began following Christ after having been given the book "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walt Brueggemann.

Today, for our service, Jodi chose several excerpts from Bud's poem "Street Sermon" that I've copied out in full below. It's from his book "Hundred Block Rock." The first time I read this poem, when it was printed in the local Carnegie Newsletter last year, I found myself weeping. For some reason, the title and disclaimer led me to expect a full-on anti-Christian diatribe. Instead I got one of the rawest, most moving sermons I've ever read. I write it here in hopes that you'll be similarly moved this Good Friday, and in hopes that you'll buy some of Bud's poetry.

The poem is long, and there is some language, but I promise, it's worth it.

Street
Sermon

(after
hearing one too many preachers haranguing
about hell-fire on
granville street)